Gord Schultz

This turned out to be a pretty good week of fishing overall even though the start of the week wasn’t so great.  I went to my Carp spot to see if the bite was on.  When I arrived they were jumping which is always an excellent sign.  Baited up the area and sent my boiles a flying and sat down with the radio on.  After 4 hours of no hits and several weeds on my hooks I gave up for the day.  On Wednesday Sheldon and I planned a pre fish of Mississippi Lake for our Walleye School.  We launched out of 9A and within 10 minutes we were on fish.  I was running a 2 ounce bottom bouncer with a spinner rig and a juicy night crawler and before I could get the rod into the holder we had our first walleye.  Sheldon was running a Flicker Shad and the crankbait bite wasn’t too hot.  By the time he switched over to a slow death setup I had landed 6 walleye.  Even though the fishing was awesome we had to move and check our other spots.  The fishing slowed down in these spots even though we were marking several fish on bottom.  After about an hour of checking these spots we headed back to our starting point and the bite was still hot.  We finished off the night 17 for 18 with the smallest eye being around 15″ and the biggest at 19″.

Saturday came with some rainy weather, but we and our students braved it out and it turned out to be a great decision.  We started the day at a local restaurant and covered off what we would be teaching for the day.  Chris and Dave were awesome students, they fishing backgrounds were a little different but they both knew how to handle a rod that’s for sure.  We made the run from the Carleton Place launch to one of our spots and we started to mark fish right away.  We covered off how to run and rig bottom bouncers and hit that area for about 20 minutes.  By that time to rain had stopped but the walleye in this spot had lock jaw.  We headed to our second spot and we were on fish within 10 minutes.  In fact Chris caught his first walleye.  Sheldon will post the pictures in his blog.  Not to be outdone Dave started getting into the walleye as well.  He seemed to have the hot stick for the first 30 minutes.  He caught some nice walleye, but also a nice Pike and some very fat Sun fish.  We took the time to show Chris and Dave how to tie their own spinner rigs and what was cool is they ran them and caught fish with them.  We left that spot and covered some more trolling techniques with crankbaits, planer boards and lead core.  That type of bite was working that day and after about an hour of that we went back to bottom bouncing and started to get back into the walleye.  It was a great day on the water and we hoped Chris and Dave learned a lot.

Well Sheldon and I have finished our first tourney of the year and even though we didn’t get the win we were looking for we still had a good time and it was good to be in tournament mode.  We were 12th on blast off but we quickly passed most of the field to get to the prime spot.  We dropped our first bottom bouncer and spinner and didn’t even get a chance to have it hit bottom when Sheldon yelled fish on.  Quickly reeled him in and into the live well she went.  Great start to the day.  We trolled the damn area for another 2 – 2&1/2 hours without anything hitting.  Sheldon and I agreed to move to our next spot.  We arrived to our 2nd spot to find quite a few people fishing for perch.  Since it wasn’t going to be a good place to troll we made the 18 mile run to the Raisin River.  We fished in the river for another 3&1/2 hours and caught some beautiful bass but no Walleye’s.  We did see the Ministry out once again doing it’s checks.  We had a chat with him and he told us that he issued 16 fines so far ranging from no license to people keeping Bass.

After we left the river and ran back to that spot I was speaking about earlier we started our troll without any success.  We went back to where our day started to see if we could add to our numbers.  When we arrived we noticed four of the boats from the this morning were still there.  We chatted with a few of them as we made our pass and they told us they hadn’t landed anything.  We ran back to the weigh in and the top weight was 24 pounds.  This team ran to the locks and fished another section of the river where they were last week when they won a tournament.  Second place came in around 11 pounds and 3 and forth were about the same.  Afterwards at Don’ Cherry’s they handed out the cheques and the many prizes.  Luc (the gentlemen who organized the tournament) did an awesome job with the tourney as well as the prizes.  Next year we’ll make sure we both have our New York State licenses and we will expand out fishing grounds.  Still an great time though.

Well the weather was too good not to head out today so after work I met up with my brother-in-law and we headed down to one of favorite Carp spots.  The bad news was the spill damn was wide open so there was too much current in our A spot.  We still managed to wet a line, but nothing would hit.  Hopefully this week they will close the spill damn doors a bit more and get that current down.  Until the next trip.

Well the season has finally started.  I have to say it’s been a long time coming.  As much as I really enjoy ice fishing the soft water season couldn’t have come quicker.  For our first fish Sheldon and I headed down to Cornwall for a pre-fish for next’s week tournament.  We arrived at the Long Sault Motel and unpacked our gear.  For those of you looking for a place to stay in the Cornwall area The Long Sault Motel is a great spot.  Also if you Carp fish they have one of the best shops around for Carp gear (www.canadiancarpclub.on.ca).  Our first day was excellent, even though I didn’t get a good chance to run my new boat at any great speed.  We looked at one of our spots for next week’s tourney and it looks really good.  Marked lot’s of fish in several holes and we started to get our pattern and game plan in place.  Was also a great chance to get used to my new boat.  There are so many compartments it’s tough to remember where we put stuff.  Day one of the pre-fish went well.

Day 2:  Well when we woke up this morning it looked half decent.  The wind laid right down and it wasn’t raining…. yet.  After we left the motel and headed to the launch it started to rain.  I didn’t care because this was the first time I had a chance to really give the new ride a good run.  Well heading down river we hit a top speed of 55.8 on the GPS.  The new ride was awesome.  We arrived at our first spot and we started to mark fish again.  The only bad thing about today was the water temp had dropped to 46.  We ran to a couple more spots and marked fish again.  This will help out with our game plan for next weekend.  The one thing I was really impressed with this weekend (besides my new ride… can you tell I’m excited) was these new rods Sheldon and I picked up from Bass Pro.  These are their new “Deadstick” rods which come in 8′6″ telescopic and 12′ (two piece).  These rods have a fantastic action and can be used to bottom bouncing or trolling small cranks.  I would even use them with planer boards.  Now the tough part of this week will be waiting for Friday when we can leave for the tourney.  Might have to head out a few nights this week for some Crappie or some Carp fishing.